POWER

Universal Flow Monitors launched the P420 Series, a set of plastic, vortex-shedding flow rate transmitters designed to process corrosive fluids, water, brine, and low-viscosity fluids in water treatment, chemical, and desalination applications. The series features plastic flowmeters that have no O-ring seals or other moving parts that can stick, bind, or coat processing water or […]

Compliance with reliability standards has moved beyond the "check the box" phase to one of regulations with real deliverables and fines for noncompliance. Utilities that aren’t vigorously evaluating and refining their compliance procedures today may find NERC’s 2009 audit cycle much more challenging.

Facilities facing emergency plumbing repairs are typically forced to shut down and then drain the entire water system. RIDGID’s new SF-2500 SuperFreeze pipe-freezing unit is designed to avoid this costly and inconvenient process by quickly isolating sections of copper or steel pipe with ice plugs. Plugs are formed in as little as five minutes in […]

The Max Climber 2000P-IPM rack and pinion personnel and material elevator by Beta Max Inc. uses little space while providing a safe and efficient means of access for workers performing maintenance work at high levels. The Max Climber 2000P-IPM easily attaches to scaffolding or a building exterior and is designed with a base system footprint […]

Parker Hannifin’s Instrumentation Products Division introduced Pilot Pro, a new process sample conditioning system communications interface designed to provide a link between plant process control operations and analyzer maintenance networks, regardless of where the two are located. A sensor and solenoid administration module, Pilot Pro is designed to acquire, transmit, and manage real-time sample system […]

As the Obama administration takes office, energy resource allocation is both the most critical national security issue and the most critical economic issue facing us. It will be difficult to sustain and improve economic growth unless we implement policies that result in the more rational use of energy resources, especially those for which there is a finite supply.

Just after midnight on Dec. 22, 2008, a 40-acre pond holding coal combustion waste for a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) steam power plant ruptured, sending a wave of wet ash across 300 acres of rural land in Harriman County, Tenn. It was the largest coal slurry spill in U.S. history — more than three times the size of the Martin Country, Ky., sludge spill of 2000, and about eight times that of the 1972 Buffalo Creek flood in West Virginia. Unlike that flood, which killed 125 people and injured scores others, this one, Tennessee authorities reported, resulted in no serious injuries or hospitalizations.

A year after Exelon Nuclear ceremoniously announced the selection of General Electric-Hitachi’s Economic & Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) design (Figure 2) as its preferred technology for a proposed two-unit nuclear facility in Victoria County, Texas, the operator of the largest nuclear power fleet in the U.S. — and the third-largest in the world — said it had reconsidered its decision. The company said it is now negotiating separately with Toshiba and GE-Hitachi, both vendors of the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR), and with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for its U.S. Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (US APWR).

I just renewed my professional society membership dues for the umpteenth year, and while writing the check, I paused to consider if I was getting good value from them. I expect to receive another "suitable for framing" certificate this year, as the number of my membership years ends with a zero, but I wondered if there were other, more tangible benefits.

China has put its nuclear power plans on a fast track, kicking off a construction frenzy worth billions of dollars. In the latter months of 2008, the nation inaugurated construction of seven reactors, and in 2009, work will begin on another 10.